CKA Troubleshooting Practice Question
A node in your cluster shows status 'NotReady'. You have SSH access to the node. What is the first command you should run to check the kubelet status?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often jump to checking logs (option B or D) first, but the CKA exam expects you to follow a systematic troubleshooting hierarchy: start with service status, then logs, then runtime checks.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
systemctl status kubelet
When a node is NotReady, the first step is to check if the kubelet service is running, because the kubelet is the primary agent responsible for reporting node status to the control plane. Running `systemctl status kubelet` immediately shows whether the kubelet service is active, failed, or stopped, along with recent log snippets, making it the fastest diagnostic command.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
systemctl status docker (or containerd)
Why it's wrong here
While a failing container runtime can cause a node to report as NotReady, checking its status is not the primary diagnostic step. The kubelet is the core agent responsible for reporting node status to the control plane. If the kubelet service itself is stopped or crashed, the node will immediately show as NotReady regardless of the runtime's health, making the kubelet status the most logical first check.
- ✗
cat /var/log/kubelet.log
Why it's wrong here
On modern systemd-based Linux distributions, the kubelet service typically logs directly to the systemd journal rather than a dedicated file like /var/log/kubelet.log. Attempting to read this file will likely result in a "No such file or directory" error. Even if file logging were configured, reading raw log files is less efficient than first verifying if the service daemon is actively running.
- ✓
systemctl status kubelet
Why this is correct
The kubelet is the primary node agent that communicates with the Kubernetes control plane to report node status and heartbeat. Running systemctl status kubelet immediately reveals whether the service is active, inactive, or failing, which is the most direct and efficient first step when troubleshooting a NotReady node via SSH.
- ✗
journalctl -u kubelet
Why it's wrong here
Although this command retrieves the systemd log history for the kubelet, which is highly useful for debugging crash loops, it is not the optimal first step. Dumping a large volume of log lines can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Checking the high-level service state with systemctl status should always precede deep log analysis.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CKA exam.